Terror planet
Pleasant calm cosmic music filled his ears as he relaxed into soft gravity chair. The spaceship still had two month left by his time to reach the destination, but that felt like nothing considering he has spent last five years on this mission. All of the training was a success, that’s what he heard on the transmission from the Earth team each week. Ten years he prepared for this trip. it was suppose to be two Earth years, in this new model, fastest in history, yet the calculations were off and they also underestimated the engine, he had to fix things several times. The hardest thing was knowing that by the time he is back his son will be eleven years older, no longer a boy.
The task for Jean, that was his name, was to set up a settlement station and secure perimeter on a planet called Ecalypsus 33, a planet that showed a lot of promise and had an ozone layer just like Earth. He was to spend a year there, by the end of that term another team would arrive, of ten people, five women and five men, to begin the colony.
He filled his final days of waiting with music and books. He wrote in his journal as well.
The day that he waited for with such tremendous patience and mental fortitude finally arrived. Jean began the landing.
As the large ship entered the atmosphere and smoothly landed on a large flat field near forests, mountain and a lake, Jean began to feel a lot of pressure in his lungs, chest and head. The atmosphere change was harsh. He opened the ship’s main doors and tried to walk, but his legs became wobbly and then came tremendous pain within his joints and bones. Despite taking all the supplements and using gravity chamber, five years in space was simply far too long for the body not to go through atrophy.
Luckily most of the settlement lab and house was automated and the ship unloaded and put everything together. Jean felt like just getting from the ship into the new lab was a workout. He sat in the chair drinking his nutrition tubes. Before he could plant all the seeds and place the ship’s pipe to dig and connect to a water stream, he first had to get physically stronger, so with pain in his fingers and wrist he wrote down a workout schedule for each day.
It took Jean two month of training and extra supplementation to reach a physical point where he could begin to work on all the settlement tasks, it took him another four month to set absolutely everything up and complete all the planting. Now he was ready to explore the lands.
With his knees still slightly creaking Jean decided to venture towards the mountain first and explore it’s surroundings. He was brining several things with him for safety measures. One electro plasma gate, which consisted of two small pieces that fit in a pocket, all you had to do is spread them apart no further than ten feet and it would create a barrier or a seal which could electrocute any intruders. Another item was a new style handgun, it fired thin and long titanium bullets with explosive plasma inside. A flash light attached to his suit. The last items were a small video recorder and a pack with nutrition tubes.
Despite walking well still being a challenge, it brought joy to Jean, he has overcome yet another obstacle. Upon finishing walking through the long field and reaching mountain slopes Jean noticed an opening on the side between two giant stones, perhaps a cave of some sort. Jean turned on his flashlight, which also gave a signal if there was a larger life form near by, and stepped inside the cave. He felt a breeze come from within the cave, this must have been a whole system, he turned on a gps tracker to make sure he knew the way out if his curiosity led him too deep.
He slowly moved through one corridor into the next, they all seemed similar, dark blue smooth walls, but then he accidentally kicked something beneath. He picked up the object, it was some sort of metal and looked like a piece of shoulder armor. He did not have an ability to carry to much back with him so he placed it back on the floor, his legs were getting tired, but now that he found something he chose to keep going, it’s been too long for him without an adventure like this in life.
Suddenly he heard someone whisper his name in the darkness, he turned quickly drawing his gun, his legs wobbled and he almost fell. Goosebumps covered his arms and back, he kept looking around using his flashlight, but saw no one. He sat down for a moment and figured it was the fatigue. He drank some water and had a nutrition tube. After refocusing and stretching his legs, Jean continued.
After about another ten minutes Jean heard sound of water and he came out into a large wide cave, there was a small opening in the ceiling from which some light got in and also a small waterfall was formed. In the center stood a large black statue, around it lay various metal pieces, computers, equipment, and even torn space suits. The statue was of a creature with a head resembling a lizard, with three eyes, it had six muscular arms and tentacles instead of legs.
As Jean analyzed various parts on the ground he realized they were spaceship parts, he swallowed nervously. The scanners of this planet showed no life similar to human, so how could this be? How many came before? From other worlds? Where they humanoid? He had many questions as his eyes drew back to the statue, the closer he looked the more it seemed like there was a glow inside of it. Jean placed his hand cautiously upon the statue, it was incredibly smooth and he felt a pulsating energy. Suddenly his eyes closed and he was flying through a tunnel in space and time, eventually he stopped and hung among the stars. Before him was floating this very giant creature depicted by the statue.
“Many have come, and more will come, none so far have taken the challenge to serve and feed my son, will you be the one?” whispered the creature in a deep voice.
Jean opened his eyes and backed away from the statue, in the back of the room, in the darkness, he heard movement, slithering upon the floor. His life form detector began to beep.
Jean started to run, he kept checking his tracker to make sure he took the right turns. His weak legs were in immense pain but the adrenaline rushing through him because of horror kept him up. Behind him he could constantly hear the slithering sounds, something was following him. The device kept on beeping.
As he reached the entrance he used the electro plasma gate to shut it, anything that tried to come through would be roasted. Jean collapsed on the ground and leaned against the rocks, he was breathing heavily.
After consuming another nutrition tube, Jean wobbled back to his settlement. He climbed into the ship and sent a message to the command, he informed them about what happened.
It took two weeks before their reply reached him, they said that the settlers were on target time and will be there in less than six month, they told Jean to make sure he secures the area for them. He could not believe it. They instructed him to be a soldier.
Jean’s health was improving, but the night that he got the message he began to have strange dreams, someone kept talking to him, telling him that people were coming to replace him, that once they were there they’d kill him, he would never see his son again. These nightmares went on for two weeks, but then it got worse, he began to hear whispers and voices when he was awake as well. Jean tried to play his violin, to train harder, to do anything that could stop the voices in his head, but nothing was working.
“Kill, or be killed.” It was one of the most common lines he was hearing in his head day after day.
He finally went back to where the cave was, the gate still sealed it, whatever creature it was, it must have been trapped inside, but somehow it had access to his mind, perhaps because he touched that statue.
The horror became more intense when Jean started having visions of other humans sneaking around the ship and settlement. They laughed in the darkness, told him what a loser he was, how easily it was to manipulate him to leave his family behind and be used by them. Jean screamed at them, denying these things, but slowly, bit by bit, Jean’s mind was slipping away from him.
It was just a week before the settlers were to arrive and Jean received a message from the command that he will have to wake them up when their ship landed by putting in codes sent to him. He sent no reply back as in terror he anticipated arrival of those who were, in his mind, coming to kill him.
As the settlers ship landed, Jean opened it’s large doors and walked around looking at each one of them, sleeping behind the glass of their space beds. Anger, fear, hate and terror was controlling him as he listened to the voices tell him those are the ones that will end him.
Jean went back to the cave, he destroyed the electro plasma gates blocking the opening. After, he ran back to his ship, transferred the fuel he needed to get back to Earth and departed the planet.
The End.
Friends, this story inspired me to write a whole novella on this theme, Tricunius 2533, you can check it out below. It was number 1 in two countries.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0BZ7HM7RX/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Moc moc